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Special Council Meeting – 29 May 2008 – Budget Debate: Speech by Councillor Karen Meyer, DA Spokesperson on Community Safety The Mayor, Dr Gwen Ramakgopa, made constant statements in the last two years that “Safety is a priority in the City Council”. The facts however, show that this is in fact not so. The Community Safety Division of council was allocated a Capital Budget of R63 million. This is only 2% of the total budget! Last year it was 1,7% and the year before that, 2%. As for the Operational Budget, the Community Safety Division was allocated R858 million for this year. Percentage wise, this means 7,46%. This is less than last year with 8,11% and even the year before that it was 8,14%. So much for inflation, as we go back to what we had two year ago! Yes, I’m sure safety is a priority in the Tshwane Metro Council! The breakdown of the Capital Expenditure shows that Disaster Management will get R 9 ½ million; Fire and Rescue Services R11 million; Licensing R2,2 million and Metro Police will get R38 ½ million. The odd R2 million is for use of the whole department. Under the Licensing Division, again no provision was made for the building of new test centres to assist in the demand as pointed out by the DA last year as well as the previous year! At least three new test centres are needed. In five years time people would have to make appointments one year in advance and then still have to wait at least 12 hours in a queue if we do not build the additional centres! Even thought the budget for Fire and Rescue Services improved, it’s still not enough to stop Fire Stations from closing especially those needed in Mamelodi and the north. Disaster Management has shown this week , when they realised that piles of paper does not mean that a plan will work in practice, that they need help when they could not assist 2 000 refugees. Hopefully they will use some of this budget to get a decent plan together! As for the Metro Police, to have an additional 400 odd Metro Police officers appointed in a year is just not good enough! Unfortunately, with a budget like this, what can we expect? To make matters worse, due to the inefficiency of implementing the ASD, resulted in delays in appointments and therefore insured an under expenditure of R32 million for the 07/08 financial year! Fire and Rescue services underspend R2 million due to the same problem! In other words, this department is a mere blob on the budget, but could not even appoint the personnel they desperately needed! Therefore, Council decisions were ignored by this unnecessary administrative incompetence which means that interdependency with other departments was ignored at the cost the safety of our residents and at the cost of effective expenditure! Sure, the 2,3 million residents believe safety is a priority in this city! The Mayor must accept the serious situation this city is in as far as safety is concerned. The escalating barbaric ways in which our residents are shot at, maimed, raped and tortured in their own city should show the Mayor that this is no longer just for the mere purpose of thievery! A substantial piece of the budget should and could have been provided towards this department to ensure the proper management of lawlessness! As for the MMC, Bongi Lehobye, we know she is trying her best, and the DA wishes to thank her for all her efforts, the DA respect her for the job she is trying to do under a constrained budget, a much hampered system as well as a possible appointment of the Head of Community Safety which will not be able to make this department more effective, even if he does bring his own staff! The Mayor should stop saying safety is a priority if it does not reflect in the budget, you can only fool people so many times! Therefore the DA cannot support this budget. Karen Meyer
DA Spokesperson on Community Safety
Cell: 082 3737 662 |
